Child abuse prevention collaboration makes progress

During the child abuse summit that YorkCounts organized last summer, one of the things stakeholders promised to do was continue meeting to develop a strategy to be more effective at preventing abuse. Those meetings are happening, with some real progress to report.

Three accomplishments are worth noting. First, the Child Abuse Prevention/Outreach Committee, which has taken the lead on bringing stakeholders back to the table, worked with the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance to bring the Painting for Prevention Murals Project to York for 2011. The Murals Project is one of the Alliance's key efforts to raise awareness of child abuse. In York, mural day is April 9 at Central Market, and the public will be invited to come and help create the mural while learning about child abuse prevention. April is National Child Abuse Awareness Month.

Second, YorkCounts, the York County Council of Churches, the Logos Academy and York City are partnering for an event on March 21 that will bring together county pastors to hear a pitch that they all take one Sunday in April to preach on child abuse prevention. The goal for a Child Abuse Prevention Sunday would be to continue raising awareness of the issue across the county and to urge pastors and their congregations to take action to support families.

Finally, the stakeholders have agreed to work together for another public event on child abuse in June. They would use the event to focus on the broad network of agencies that exist now, to showcase the work they do and to highlight the expanded outreach that will help agencies better connect with the families that need the help. This June event is still in the early stages of planning, so there aren't many details pinned down, yet. But they will be coming soon.

What are your ideas for ways the child abuse prevention community can better reach out to families?

- Dan Fink

Child abuse next steps

Here's a quick update on the child abuse town hall from last week. We had more than 250 people come to the York Jewish Community Center to explore the challenges we face in confronting child abuse and to explore possible solutions. It was by all accounts a productive conversation.

YorkCounts emphasized going in that we didn't want the discussion to end at the meeting; we asked for a commitment from the stakeholder group to meet again to flesh out plans for next steps and goals.

That's happening.

YorkCounts is working with Bev Mackereth, director of York County Human Services Department, to bring the stakeholders back together for a meeting in late July or early August. The purpose of that meeting will be to identify one or two next steps that can be undertaken right now and to discuss who else should be at the table for any kind of broad community conversation about child abuse. The group will also explore which organization might be best suited to serve as the clearly identified "face" of child abuse prevention and education for the county. And finally, and maybe most importantly, folks will also be asked to participate in a planning retreat that will be used to develop a structured, coordinated plan for reducing child abuse in York County.

We were pleased at the response to the town hall; it seemed like a community conversation that had been waiting to happen. And now we're energized by the stakeholders and their willingness to take the next steps.

We'll help them in whatever ways we can. And we wish them luck. There's a lot of important work happening in York County, but I'm not sure anything could be more important than protecting our most vulnerable citizens.

- Dan Fink